|
|
|
|
MOSCOW — On a recent episode of television show “Comedy Club,” a comedian downplayed the crisis in Russia. “Why are people talking about a crisis, when there’s a traffic jam of Bentleys?” Alexander Nezlobin asked. He went on to list what would be real signs of a crisis: Zenit football team agrees to trade its star Andrei Arshavin for potatoes, a McDonald’s Happy Meal comes with salt, matches and soap instead of a toy, and you need to take out a mortgage to buy pelmeny. “There isn’t any crisis,” Nezlobin concluded his monologue, as the audience of pop starlets and sportsmen clapped and sipped champagne. While in the West, the crisis is creating plenty of material for comedians, Russian comedians are steering clear of the topic on television or going for light, uncontroversial jokes. |
|
PUPPET SHOW
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A Christmas and New Year market on Ostrovskogo Ploshchad near the Alexandrinsky Theater on Wednesday, where children are entertained by puppets each day ay 4 p.m. |
|
MOSCOW — Russia played host Tuesday as 11 gas producing countries agreed to work more closely to control supply levels on world markets and vowed to step up other cooperation, upgrading the Gas Exporting Countries Forum into a more official and potentially influential group. The intensified contacts between gas-supplying nations have drawn close attention from major Western energy consuming countries, worried that the organization could move to try to influence world prices in the same manner as OPEC.
|
|
TBILISI — Georgia and the United States will on Jan. 4 sign a strategic partnership treaty, the Georgian foreign ministry said on Thursday, in a move that risks again provoking Russian wrath against Tbilisi. “Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Grigol Vashadze and the U. |
|
MOSCOW — In the past three months, “financial crisis” has become a ubiquitous phrase for Russians: it glosses newspaper headlines daily and is more and more frequently appearing on billboard, print, TV and radio advertisements for banks and other private companies. |
All photos from issue.
|
|
|
|
|
MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s reputation as a Teflon leader is showing scratches as some Russians start to see a growing disconnect between the realities of the financial crisis and Putin’s public posture as the nation’s savior. Posters openly insulting Putin were among those waved at a rally of thousands of motorists against a hike in import duties for used cars in Vladivostok for the past two weekends. Earlier, only radical members from the banned National Bolshevik Party had dared to attack Putin in public. For the first time since Putin stepped down as president in May, Duma deputies on Wednesday called for Putin to be summoned to explain why the country posted a sharp decline in industrial output in November. |
|
HELPING HAND
/ Reuters
President Dmitry Medvedev (r) meets Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the Kremlin in Moscow on Monday. Abbas was in Russia for a three day working visit. |
|
MOSCOW — A test launch of the Navy’s new Bulava submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missile ended in failure Tuesday, in just the latest setback in attempts to revamp the country’s nuclear arsenal. The missile went off course after being launched from the Dmitry Donskoi submarine and was ordered to self-destruct, a defense industry source told Interfax.
|
|
VIENNA — The OSCE said Monday it would start shutting down its mission in Georgia on Jan. 1 after Russia blocked a proposal to extend it in a standoff over the status of the breakaway South Ossetia region. Moscow wants to split up the international democracy and human rights group’s mission in Georgia to reflect Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia as an independent state after crushing Georgia’s bid to retake the territory. |
|
|
|
|
MOSCOW — Gazprom’s board approved on Tuesday its investment program and budget, which calls for 2009 capital spending of 699.88 billion rubles ($24.7 billion). The company also plans long-term financial investments of 220.56 billion rubles, bringing total spending to 920.44 billion rubles, Gazprom said in a statement. The 2009 budget provides for total cash income and revenue of 3.72 trillion rubles. It estimates liabilities, expenditure and investments at 3.8 trillion rubles, financial borrowings of 90 billion rubles and a budget surplus of 500 million rubles. Gazprom expects an 11.3 billion ruble effect from cost-cutting measures. |
|
HOUSE PARTY
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Natalia Kaveshnikova, confectioner at the Astoria Hotel, stands by ginger bread houses she has prepared to order for the seasonal celebrations. Mild temperatures are predicted for the weekend. |
|
MOSCOW — With investors preparing for the holidays and many international funds closed until January, Russia’s equity markets look set for a quiet last two weeks. But the state may also seek to use the Christmas lull to buy up domestic equities as a consolation boost to finish out 2008. The state’s main bailout vehicle, Vneshekonombank, or VEB, will likely take advantage of the low trading volume on the MICEX and RTS exchanges in the coming days to prop up prices, analysts said, which could mitigate — if briefly — what has been a particularly dismal year for Russian stocks.
|
|
MOSCOW — Board members with Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works will forfeit their salaries for the four months from January until their contracts expire, the company said Tuesday. The move is a rare one in Russia, where company executives have been reluctant to follow the lead of their colleagues in the West in waiving compensation in times of crisis, and it comes after workers at the company complained of being pressured to quit. |
|
MOSCOW — At one time considered an investment bonanza, the Yekaterinburg real estate market is now on the edge of collapse, experts and market players say. |
|
|
|
 In 2009, as the frequency and intensity of protests across the country increase, the people will start demanding fundamental changes in the country’s political course and leadership. Russians are increasingly worried about the economic crisis -- and rightfully so. |
|
When President-elect Barack Obama decided to name former opponent Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state, many observers considered it a dubious staffing choice in terms of foreign policy but a brilliant move in terms of domestic policy. |
|
|
|
 As is customary at the end of the year, we look back at some of the events that shaped culture, arts and ideas in St. Petersburg and Russia in 2008. JANUARY The heavily promoted sequel to the classic Soviet New Year film “Irony of Fate” —titled “Irony of Fate: Continuation” — storms the box office, breaking records for cinema attendance in Russia. |
|
The same team behind the smash hit Ruan Tai (a Thai restaurant) has created a charming new Chinese restaurant, Dary Podnebesnoy (China’s Gifts) next door. |
 More than eighty works by Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti are on display in St. Petersburg to demonstrate the full range of objects made by the artist in different periods of his life, including the sculptures of slender, elongated human forms that became his trademark as well as early works and lesser-known paintings and drawings. Giacometti (1901-1966) grew up in Italian-speaking Switzerland and came from an artistic background — his father, Giovanni, was a well-known Post-Impressionist painter. |
|
 Russian fashion critic and author Alexander Vassiliev has amassed an unusual collection of photographs of Russian and Soviet figures with a Hollywood connection that is now on display at the National Center of Photography. |
|
|
|
|
NEW YORK — U.S. officials pressed on with a probe into the apparent suicide of a French investment manager ruined in the alleged pyramid scheme of Wall Street titan Bernard Madoff amid more fallout from the widening scandal. Thierry de la Villehuchet, 65, who lost more than a billion dollars in the scam, was found dead in his Manhattan office early Tuesday with pills around him and his arm slit with a box cutter, the New York City police said. |
|
|
|
 MANCHESTER, England — Sir Alex Ferguson believes Manchester United’s success in winning the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan can propel the team towards retaining the English Premier League title. The European champions added the global crown to their honours list by defeating Ecuador’s Liga de Quito in Yokohama last Sunday, with Wayne Rooney netting the winning goal for Ferguson’s side. |
Temp: -1°C clear 
Issues Archive